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Friday, February 10, 2012

Hearts and Flowers for Valentine's Day from Bellevue to Enfield

The Bellevue School Board voted this morning to officially notify Susan Enfield that she is a “strong candidate” for their superintendent vacancy and that it will consider accelerating the search process to accommodate her.

I'm a little confused at why they would accelerate the process to "accommodate her" unless she wanted to leave SPS early. I mean, after all, if Bellevue is going to have a process, you'd think they'd want to do a through one. Or maybe this explains it:

Bellevue officials believe Enfield is being recruited to apply for superintendent vacancies in several schools districts across the country and region, said Coe, although she declined to say why they think that.

Meanwhile, I hope to do a thread this weekend on Seattle's search firm - they look good to me and hey! they have a money-back guarantee if their candidate leaves in the first year.

District Watcher, I was going to write another thread but I will answer your question.

The Alliance for Education and the Our Schools Coalition were allowed to interview with the recruiters (along with an Asian-Pacific coalition. Why them, I cannot say. I do know that for some reason the Alliance/Our Schools brought multiple people (instead of one rep). The interview was about what they wanted in a superintendent.

They are NOT on the search committee (although I'm sure they would like to be and will do everything they can to influence the process).

I am a Bellevue School District employee. Here is a potion of an e-mail that was sent to all BSD staff today:

This morning the school board met to discuss and decide on a possible course of action for public acknowledgement of candidates in the Superintendent search process. Paul Mills, Christine Chew, Chris Marks and Steve McConnell were present. The Board passed a motion to authorize Board President Paul Mills to tell Susan Enfield that the school board considers her to be a strong candidate for the Bellevue School Superintendent position, and will consider an accelerated interview process for her pending completion of the community input forums scheduled through Thursday, February 16, 2012. Susan Enfield has expressed interest in the position and was a finalist for the position in the 2008 superintendent search process.

What does a "strong candidate" mean? Are we going to conduct a superintendent search process or not? If not, don't waste our time by scheduling public meetings to make it appear that we are legitimately looking for a viable candidate.

Besides, Enfield has strong personal and professional ties to Cudeiro who just resigned ... to the delight of a significant number of BSD employees. In case you have not heard, Cuediero received a 97% vote of no confidence from BSD teachers this past August - after the teacher's contract was settled. If Enfield gets the job without a real search would the BSD be signing up for more of the same?

First of all, if you go to the OSC website and see the list of organizations, do you honestly recognize most of them? I am searching for what I wrote about some of these org's listed but many of them are dummy orgs.

But anyway, let's take a stroll down memory lane in terms of OSC.

In August of 2010, Sue and I posted an item about SERVE. Remember that fiasco?

Here's an excerpt from that post:

We originally posted this back in May when the Seattle teachers’ contract negotiations were just beginning. Now it’s late summer, and the school district has shown its hand — a controversial proposal (it has named “SERVE”) to link teacher evaluations to a standardized test (not designed for this purpose) and give the superintendent unprecedented power to fire teachers at will — this post becomes even more relevant. This could lead to a teachers’ strike in September. Some parents have said they are ready to stand with their children’s teachers on the picket lines, because high-stakes testing for our kids and teachers, and a superintendent who is accountable to no one is a poisonous and unacceptable proposal. – sue p.

Also of note: the reemergence of the “Our Schools Coalition” in this dialogue also deserves renewed scrutiny. This post discusses the shady genesis of that Astroturf group which is now pushing for these unsound “reforms” without any mandate from the true members of the community — parents like us who actually have children in Seattle’s public schools who are on the receiving end of these “reforms.”

Everyone needs to start calling out these fake, made-up organizations for what they are and we need to demand that our school board, our state representatives and our governor begin to listen to US. We know better that anyone else does what's best for our children.

And while I'm on the subject, just who the heck is LEV? (The League of Education Voters). They do not have a membership and only receive money from f=donors. Their biggest donor to date is Gates.

They call themselves an advocacy group and yet who are they advocating for? They have been, for the last year straight,pushing charter schools and online learning and yet the majority of parents and educators and citizens for that matter are against having charter schools in our state and online learning as a way to teach our children.

Korsmo and Munn are like the little guy behind all of the smoke and mirrors in The Wizard of Oz. Again, don't let these guys get a seat at the table representing who knows what interests without the rest of us having an equal voice.

LEV and others have been paid to dominate the conversation without us questioning their validity.

It's time to take back what is rightfully ours, the right to determine the future of our children.

BSD passed over Enfield two years ago - I don't know that we know the reasons. It may have be a close decision, it may have been a split decision. I'm neutral on their move to approach her because in business and at least one non-profit I've worked with, I've approached a recent second choice and encouraged them to apply for anther job (or the same job a year later). Why - because the no they got - was a no to the particular job at that time, not a no we don't like you at all. And frankly, the higher up the food chain a position is, the more likely a person can negotiate some of the timing.

As far as who LEV is... seems I may have some information around her to help answer that. Will have to dig.

Dora, for your consideration, and that of others who might want to do a little digging on the Our Schools Coalition cough*strategies360*cough (they were OSC then, and their logo is on the top of their "case study" document currently), I here repost my comment from a thread a couple days ago:

The Our Schools "Coalition"?! Really?

For those of new to this stuff that's getting old, the Our Schools Coalition was "coalesced" by the Alliance For Education. League of Education Voters, and Technology Alliance in spring of 2010 for the sole purpose of disseminating a bogus "survey" of people, meant to discredit teachers on the eve of their contract negotiations. (ON the new OSC website, the survey is gone, but its results are in the appendix of the new "Case Study, which lays out the "use 'data' argument") This "survey" was done using names and numbers of families and teachers, gained nefariously from Seattle Public Schools, and had silly, biased questions. When people complained about the bias of the first one, they ran another, almost equally as biased.

The OSC website was thrown up, with little content except for this "survey" and its "results" (excluding the results of the survey questions regarding the superintendent.) It had a list of the "coalition" (Tim Burgess was first signer-on, followed by a couple of other politicos; then you had three or four business orgs, then five or six eductation Reform groups, like LEV and Stand, then about twenty Seattle minority groups....or at least their names: I was in one of these groups, and nobody said nothin' to me about joining OSC, which is no surprise: Like WPTSA, it appears that many groups don't poll their consitutents, they merely lend their names out for political power and qui pro quo. It ain't a coalition of people, much as it would like you toe believe that, but merely a name representing power, lent by a person angling for power.

When it was pointed out that the OSC "survey" methodology said the names came from SPS, it was changed to say the list came from SPS and King County voters records, then it was changed to say it came from just King Co. then it was changed to not say anything about where the names came from. THAT'S a group that stands behind its research methodology!

OSC at first had a contact email, and when one clicked on that, it brought up the email of Strategies 360, a PR form hired by the Alliance. That was quickly changed, too: Can't have people see your "coalition" (that never meets, never discusses, never has done anything) is merely a PR front. (Not incidentally, a Strategies 360 staff member was then hired by SPS....)

Now it seems that OSC, their webpage dormant for 18 months, is back in business: They have a whole new look, but no new content. The "contact us" now eliminates the email completely in favor of one of those fill-in-the info pages, so no one tracks it back to S360 or wherever.

I guess someone deciced to reactivate the "coalition": It's no wonder, Gates and the Alliance have been prime manipulators in all these Reform actions, and their PR machine, Strategies 360, along with some politicos, businesses, and individuals speaking as if they represent groups of people are back onthe warpath.

Let's watch Our Schools Coalition and see what they do next. Also, someone do a FOIA on Alliance, SPS, and Strategies 360 communications. Hmmm.....

As a matter of public record, the website domain registry for "Our Schools Coaltion" is listed as being assigned to Jen Olson of LEV - listed on their website as their "communications manager." The site was orginally created in March of 2010 and updated on Dec. 27 2011.

Seems like a pretty direct and straightforward linkage - though certainly not obvious from anything on the site itself, unless you have an inquiring mind like me ;o)

Someone -So LEV owns the website domain, and it's run by Strategies 360, which was hired by the Alliance/LEV/Tech-Access...

The list of coalition members really says it all to me - it's evidence of the wheeling-dealing back-room deal-making, quid pro quo, you scratch my back, I've got yours nature of such things, where lots of money is involved in public services...Votes are traded for power, names are lent for money...

Here's what's hilarious. When the Board talks about getting requests from the LEV/OSC crowd, in the next breath they say - well the only group we haven't heard from then are the Asian-Pacific Islanders.

Like OSC represents latinos and african-americans and everyone else. Yeah, and Gates is a homeboy. Just because Stella Ortega got snookered into lending El Centro and her name to OSC, now they (theoretically) have a seat at the table.

Does anyone seriously believe that? What has OSC's BFF done for hispanics? Oh yeah, two of the short-timer TFAs are of hispanic heritage (they must be her beard in minority circles "see how diverse we are?).

What does it take to say you represent hundreds of people? A PO box and a mailing list? I'm gonna have to hustle some of that!

I will always remember the disrespectful actions of the members of the Alliance who came to meeting after meeting with the REAL and ORIGINAL coalition group.

Those were great days of sitting with LEV, STAND, PTSA, and many others, working together to find common ground and work to have voices heard in the teacher contract. When people say, why can't you work ed voices and groups work together, I remember that experience because I lived it.

WE were the first group to sit in a meeting with MGJ and SEA reps and district negotiators.

Then, out of nowhere, the Alliance said they couldn't sign onto our group.

Then out of nowhere came the so-called "Our Schools" Coalition and now THEY were the ones at the table.

And then LEV joined and Stand joined and the rest of us were left wondering what the hell had happened.

It was a betrayal. It was taking others' hard work, then walking away from the table with that work and calling it your own.

The Alliance for Education is not to be trusted - not in their actions and certainly not in their words.

Seems its about time to take back the mandate that the OSC has cloaked itselves in.

How about the "The Public's School Coalition"? We can engender a more genuine engagement and collaborative experience than Korsmo's blog.

I pledge right now that my foremost and primary interest is the quality and offerings of schools in the SE of Seattle. Having grown up in Seattle, I know how long this untenable situation has festered. (BTW, I do not live in SE Seattle but no matter.)

In a close second we have:

capacity management, optimal class size, and quality learning environments;proven strategies that help our kids like wrap around services and social services;reform of special education in our district;all the rest.

Let's see. If everyone sent their endorsement and email to sss.westbrook@gmail.com, can we immediately engage as a coalition? I pledge some money for a domain name (isn't that all it takes these days?)

To clarify the Bellevue board's vote for a possible accelerated superintendent search, the board voted for an accelerated search, not accelerated hiring. There's no intent in Bellevue to have Enfield (or whoever actually is hired) start as superintendent before July 1.

ITK, that's right. I use StopTFA to alert readers that the poster has an extensive history with public disclosure, legal challenges and research relating to HQT and TFA. Call my Sybil if you like. I am no less committed to everything I post. My testimony in front of the board shows that I have no qualms about making my views public.

Looks like SE is playing local districts against each other. Hot off the presses from the Highline School District, she is a finalist there. Guessing they don't know that they are her leverage point for Bellevue.

Sounds like easy money for HYA, who's conducting the search for Highline as well. I think there should be a condition in their contract where, if their candidates are short timers, we get our money back.

The other two Highline finalists are:

Dr. David Engle

Dr. David Engle served as the Executive Director of Educational Testing Service in Princeton, NJ and prior to that, as superintendent of North Platte Public School District in Nebraska from 2008 to 2011.

Dr. Engle has been a high school principal in Bellingham Public Schools, Seattle Public Schools and Bellevue Public Schools. He led school transformation efforts in Seattle Public Schools and mentored teams of principals as a facilitator for the University of Washington’s Center for Educational Leadership.

Dr. Engle is a graduate of the University of Washington and holds a master’s degree in Computer Education from St. Martin’s University in Lacey and a doctoral degree in Educational Administration from Seattle Pacific University.

Dr. Joshua Garcia

Dr. Joshua Garcia currently serves as Assistant Superintendent of Federal Way Public Schools; before that he was an Executive Director in Federal Way with responsibility for instruction, curriculum, assessment, and supervision of secondary schools.

Dr. Garcia previously served as principal at Federal Way’s Todd Beamer High School and assistant principal at White River High School. He currently is an adjunct professor in the University of Washington’s principal leadership program. From 2009 to 2011, he served as president of Washington State Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Dr. Garcia is a graduate of Washington State University and earned a master’s degree in Educational Leadership from Heritage University in Toppenish, Washington. He holds a doctoral degree in Leadership from Seattle University.

The school board has selected three finalists for the position of superintendent:

Dr. Susan Enfield

Dr. David Engle

Dr. Joshua Garcia

Each finalist will spend a full day in Highline, February 22, 23, and 24. Each day will culminate in a public forum, where the candidate will answer questions from the audience.

Public forums will be held at the Burien City Council Chambers at 400 SW 152nd Street on February 22, 23, and 24, 6:00 - 7:15 p.m.

People who can’t be present at the forums can watch it live on channel 21 in Burien or on the internet. Viewers will be able to send in questions via email or Twitter. Video of the forums will also be posted online, so people can watch it later.

Each candidate’s day in Highline will include a breakfast with community leaders; a school visit; meetings with principals, senior leaders, and an advisory committee made up of parents, principals, union representatives, and leaders of community organizations; and a final interview with the school board. The board will review feedback generated in the public forums and by the other groups who have met the candidate before making a final decision.

Frankly, she sounds like the least qualified. It may not be scientific, but list-makers and inflexible sequentials proliferate in special ed. Of course, the other two may have been special ed as well...

Education Acroynms

Advanced Learning - SPS' three-tier program for advanced learners. Made up of APP, Spectrum and ALOs. (Note: the name of the district program is "Advanced Learning Services and Programs" but these three programs fall under "Highly Capable Services" of AL Services and Programs.

ALO - Advanced Learning Opportunity, the third tier of SPS' Advanced Learning program

AP - Advanced Placement. A national program of college-level classes given in high schools.

APP - Accelerated Progress Program. One of the levels of the Advanced Learning Program. NOTE: the name of this program is now "HIGHLY CAPABLE COHORT." This change occurred in 2014.

ASB - Associated Student Body. High school leadership groups.

AYP - Adequate Yearly Progress. Part of NCLB.

BEX - Building Excellence. SPS' capital renovation/rebuilding program that is funded via the BEX levy. Every 3 years there is the Operations levy and either the BEX or BTA levies as those two levies rotate in six year cycles).

BLT - Building Leadership Team. Staff members at a school who meet regularly to discuss building issues.

BTA - Buildings, Technology, Academics. The major maintenance/other capital fund for SPS. Originally BTA was to cover major maintenance like HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning), roofs, waterlines, etc.) but now covers wide swaths of items like athletic fields, technology and funding academic needs.

CAICEE - Community Advisory Committee for Investing in Educational Excellence. Created by former Superintendent Manhas in 2008, to issue a report about reform recommendations for SPS.

CSIP - Continuous School Improvement Plan, the plan for improvement for each school as required by state law.

EOC - End of Course Assessments, given in math and science, required for high school graduationESEA - Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the federal law that governs education, includes the NCLB accountability provisions.

e-STEM or e-STEAM - STEM or STEAM curriculum with an environmental focus.

FACMAC - Facilities and Capacity Management Advisory Committee. A district committee comprises of an all-volunteer citizen group created in 2012 to help bring research and ideas to capacity management issues in the district.

FERPA - Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. A federal law that protects students' privacy

FRL - Free and reduced lunch.

FTE - Full Time Equivalent

FY - Fiscal Year

Highly Capable Services - NEW name (as of 2014) as umbrella name for these programs: Highly Capable Cohort (formerly APP), Spectrum and ALO (Advanced Learning Opportunities).

HSPE - High School Proficiency Exam, state assessment that replaced the WASL for 10th graders, required for graduation

HQT - Highly Qualified Teacher, a standard set by federal law

IA - Instructional Assistant

IB - International Baccalaureate program. An international program of advanced classes that can either be taken as stand alone or as part of an overall IB program.

IDEA - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The federal law that governs special education

MAP - Measures of Academic Progress. A computer-based adaptive assessment made by NWEA and originally purchased by the district for use as a district-wide formative assessment but now used for a wide variety of purposes.

MSP - Measurement of Student Progress, the state proficiency assessment that replaced the WASL for students in grades 1-8

MTSS - Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

NCLB - No Child Left Behind, a provision of the federal education law, ESEA, introduced during the George W. Bush administration